Painting of the Day: Antoine Margry's "Flowers in a Vase," 1849

"Flowers in a Vase"
Antoine Margry, 1849
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Shockingly little is known about the life of French artist Antoine Margry except that he lived in the first half of Nineteenth Century and that he was a painter of flowers who exhibited at the Salon between 1831 and 1847. What little we can surmise about Margry comes from studying his paintings. Clearly, this French painter was influenced by the compositions of Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish still-lifes. Margry expertly parrots these compositions while offering his own stylistic trademarks—an interest in direct observation of nature and a broad hand and technique.

Created in 1849, this canvas has been called simply “Flowers in a Vase.” Here, Margry has realistically rendered a scene of roses, peonies, lilacs, chrysanthemums, bluebells and morning glories, all arranged in an urn-shaped vase standing on a plinth.